210 reef - taking it slow

Discussion in 'Show Off Your Fish Tanks!' started by scajeo, Dec 14, 2014.

to remove this notice and enjoy 3reef content with less ads. 3reef membership is free.

  1. scajeo

    scajeo Sea Dragon

    Joined:
    May 1, 2012
    Messages:
    548
    Location:
    Port Orchard, WA.
    Wow! I've been absent for awhile. My health faultered which intern aided my tank to take a nose dive and decided that it liked to grow hair algae everywhere. I said goodbye to my corals as something destroyed each of them. I still haven't figured out what caused all of this. I slowed feeding down, I blocked all light sources, I checked params every two days and always showed good. I went to 50 gallon water changes every week, still nothing. I bought hordes and hordes of snails and hermit crabs. Something was killing off my snails. Almost all of them. I bought 4 sea hares and you could finally see the hair algae being eaten away. But then, all 4 sea hares died. Two were so far buried in the rocks I couldn't get to them. Bad choice, algae explosion! Then I ran across something from Marine Depot. Bio Digest. I purchased the BioClean it comes with the biodigest and bioptim. Went to dosing every week and the algae is almost gone. Wonderful stuff. BUT... that still doesn't tell me what caused my explosion in the first place nor and this is the worst one, does it tell me if I cleared out whatever caused it. I know with the sea hares dying and all those snails it didn't help, BUT what caused them to die in the first place. I'm back.. I hope. :)
     
  2. Click Here!

  3. oldfishkeeper

    oldfishkeeper Giant Squid

    Joined:
    Aug 13, 2012
    Messages:
    7,660
    Location:
    Cincinnati
    welcome back! it's hard to tell what may have started it all especially given that you were testing and doing regular water changes. Perhaps after you do a couple more water changes, things have stabiliized - best case scenario :) I hope your health has made a positive turnaround as well
     
    DSC reef and scajeo like this.
  4. scajeo

    scajeo Sea Dragon

    Joined:
    May 1, 2012
    Messages:
    548
    Location:
    Port Orchard, WA.
    Thank you OFK! I'm excited to see if all is really good before I start populating with corals again.
     
  5. DSC reef

    DSC reef Giant Squid

    Joined:
    Dec 16, 2012
    Messages:
    3,817
    Location:
    Cocoa, Florida
    Welcome back man!!!! I'm glad your health is better. As for your tank I'd have to question maybe the water supply? Given the algae explosion the phosphates had to be high and threw other params out of wack. Also, there could've been major swings in chemistry that you weren't seeing as well. You know like all of us that a reef tank is a balance and when the balance shifts it can be disastrous. I'd start new, check the water going in, run carbon and maybe some bacteria to repopulate my friend.
     
    scajeo likes this.
  6. scajeo

    scajeo Sea Dragon

    Joined:
    May 1, 2012
    Messages:
    548
    Location:
    Port Orchard, WA.
    I'm on a well and we have to use a water softener to take out all the crap. I know that there is still iron in the water because it's tainting our acrylics in the house. I don't have any way to test iron right now do you think that might of caused all this.
    Even though everything in the RO/DI system was only 6 months old I decided to change out all that as well a few months back.

    One of the things I picked up during this trial was a carbon reactor. I also picked up a phosban reactor as well. I've been changing them out once a month whether they needed it or not.
    One of the bioclean products is biodigest. It has bacteria to repopulate the tank. I just finished pulling my socks. Only about 2 weeks ago I was having to pull them every day because they were overflowing with hair algae EVERY DAY! This time it's been 4 days and I pulled them just to see how bad they were. They were getting close but I bet I could of waited for 3 more days before I would of had to pull them.

    Now that things are starting to turn, I'll start digging harder to find out what IS causing the problem. I'm thinking about taking Tuesday off from the store and devote the day to my setup. Go over everything with a fine tooth comb and see what I can come up with.

    Thanks DSC
     
    DSC reef likes this.
  7. DSC reef

    DSC reef Giant Squid

    Joined:
    Dec 16, 2012
    Messages:
    3,817
    Location:
    Cocoa, Florida
    Iron will fuel algae for sure. Do you have a TDS meter on your Rodi system? I'm wondering if you can add a canister to the Rodi system specifically for well water? I'm glad your back bud
     
    scajeo likes this.
  8. Click Here!

  9. scajeo

    scajeo Sea Dragon

    Joined:
    May 1, 2012
    Messages:
    548
    Location:
    Port Orchard, WA.
    Thank you Sir! It feels good to be back here again. My health isn't perfect but far better than what it was for the first half of the year.

    The TDS reads 2 coming in and 1 going out. The manufacturer recommends only one type of salt for the softener and it doesn't do a very good job at removing all the iron as I've said before. I know there is better products out there to remove the iron from the water. I like the idea of hooking up an inline canaster to remove iron for the aquarium. It doesn't seem like it'd be that hard a project to do. You've given me some food for thought.
     
    DSC reef likes this.
  10. scajeo

    scajeo Sea Dragon

    Joined:
    May 1, 2012
    Messages:
    548
    Location:
    Port Orchard, WA.
    With all the hair algae eradicated I finally worked up the nerve to do some water testing. I'm still having problems with my remaining corals. My frogspawn balled up 2 days ago and is now gone. The Torch is looking pretty rough, started with 5 heads he's lost 2 and the remaining are looking bleak. My one SPS is just about gone as well. The only thing that seems to be doing well is the xenia. Below are my numbers any ideas?

    Temp 77.8
    Ph 7.8
    Salinity 1.024
    Ammonia 0
    Nitrate 2
    Nitrite 0
    PO4 .04
    Alk 6
    Mg. 1400
    Cal. 400
    Iron 0
    Potassium 366
    Iodine .06
     
  11. DSC reef

    DSC reef Giant Squid

    Joined:
    Dec 16, 2012
    Messages:
    3,817
    Location:
    Cocoa, Florida
    The alk can come up along with ph. Alkalinity is extremely important with LPS and im wondering how much of a swing your having. Also, the changes in your tank could be to much for the current corals and there just stressed to the point of death. Throwing a few ideas out there. I know your tank will be perfect soon enough man.
     
    scajeo likes this.
  12. scajeo

    scajeo Sea Dragon

    Joined:
    May 1, 2012
    Messages:
    548
    Location:
    Port Orchard, WA.
    Im thinking the same. Just to much stress for everything. Im just going to monitor it for a while before i start any more corals. Thanks brother
     
    DSC reef likes this.